Forum tackles pollution in Jukskei River

Wetlands and riparian remedial expert, Paul Fairall opened the meeting and gave a background to the forum. The Jukskei River Catchment Management Forum was started by the Department of Water Affairs in 2000. The forum was halted briefly in 2002 but recommenced in 2005 because there was a need to know what was happening in the rivers upstream from the Hartebeespoort Dam.

Fairall explained that until the 1800s the Johannesburg area was poorly inhabited. Then major movement of various groups of people into the area occurred from Kwa-Zulu Natal. The discovery of gold in the late 1800s started the pollution of the rivers.

Fairall said that today the rivers are also being polluted by sewage. “The impact on human health of this is huge and [it] affects children worst,” he said. “There is not enough street cleaning taking place in central Joburg which results in storm water drains becoming blocked with litter. The sewer manholes are not locked and they continually burst in heavy rains as the storm water pours through them.”

Fairall believes that building wetlands and maintaining them could be the answer to Johannesburg’s many water challenges.

He outlined sewer outfalls placed in wetlands, Northern Wastewater Treatment Works’ incapacity to deal with the loads sent to it, as well as a lack of flood and storm water management as some of the major problems facing the Jukskei River and Johannesburg’s other waterways.

“The forum’s main aim is to ensure clean water for our grandchildren,” Fairall added.